The secret to Chinese cooking (that you never really wanted to know)

One of the most interesting pieces of spending some time in a new place or culture, I think, is how quickly you get attached to certain aspects of it. For me, this usually happens in the form of food. Everywhere I've lived I've had a favorite local restaurant or dish that someone has introduced me to and that I end up feeling like I can't live without. Having lived in China for almost 9 months now, I find that I have become firmly attached to local food. I almost never crave western food anymore, and even when I get the rare chance to eat it, it just isn't satisfying. I want all the food I've been eating habitually over the past few months--tomato and egg, fried eggplant, stir-fried cauliflower, vinegar-soaked cabbage, all served over a nice bowl of fresh white rice.

Still, as much as I have come to love the food here, I do have a bit of a complicated relationship with it. As tasty as it is, it is usually very heavy in oil and sodium and comes in portions best suited for a football team, which makes staying healthy a bit of a challenge. I have also had more than my fair share of nights spent crouched on my bathroom floor after enjoying a delicious meal that my taste buds loved but, apparently, my stomach did not. And, most frustrating of all, I have found most of my favorite restaurant dishes impossible to recreate. Though I've played around quite a bit with various recipes and ingredients, I've never been able to replicate the exact taste that I'm looking for.  I have pondered over this problem with a few of my fellow teachers who have also been struggling to master the art of Chinese cooking, but we've never been able to come up with the missing link. At least, not until a few days ago, when one of my fellow teachers stumbled upon a possible answer (that also said a lot about the food poisoning issue) that, frankly, made my skin crawl.

One of my absolute favorite Chinese dishes: tomato and egg

Fengwei qiezi--fried eggplant with red pepper and sesame

Dani and I have been allies since our arrival in China. As the only two meat-free foreign teachers in Qufu, we've often had to team up on group outings to fight for our right to more vegetable dishes. We've also spent quite a lot of time trying to come up with ways to explain to our students why we don't eat meat. Most of our students assume it's a religion issue, and when we try to explain health or environmental concerns they mostly just give us puzzled stares and decide to revert to their original assumption for the sake of simplicity. Dani decided to try to clear up this issue once and for all by turning one of her culture classes into a day all about food--diet, food safety, organic farming, everything you could possibly relate to food. In the midst of a class discussion with her students, though, Dani came across a piece of information that was extremely unsettling and, at first, impossible to believe.

According to Dani's students, the majority of the oil used in the restaurants in Qufu--and even in the campus cafeterias--comes from sewage. That's right, sewage. Apparently, in order to save money, many restaurant owners use cooking oil skimmed from sewer drains that has been "refined" in order to make it re-usable. Just how "refined" the oil actually is, I'm sure you can guess.

I've never held a very high opinion of Chinese food safety, but this was something that was hard to swallow (no pun intended). I decided to do a little googling, in hopes that perhaps Dani's students were simply repeating a popular rumor. Alas, no such luck. I found many articles, that were all very recent, exposing just such a practice that is apparently quite widespread in China.

It's hard to look at a dish this appealing and guess where it's been

There are two main ways this type of "recycling" happens. Underground oil recyclers form buy-sell relationships with "low-end" restaurants, buying a restaurant's used cooking oil and selling it back at a low price once it's been "refined." To add to their collection of cheap oil, these recyclers also sometimes go straight to the sewage drains outside of higher-end restaurants, which don't usually sell their used oil. As a result, especially in smaller cities like Qufu that have very few "high-end" restaurants to speak of, much of the local food cooked and sold to customers is cooked in recycled oil.

The main reason this is an issue (aside from the pure "yuck" factor) is that recycled oil is usually tainted with a high level of toxins, the most dangerous of which is known to cause liver cancer. China, apparently, has one of the highest rates of liver cancer, and considering it's been estimated that up to 1 in 10 dishes in certain areas are cooked with sewage oil, it's pretty clear why.

The legal side of this particular food safety problem has been something I've had trouble pinning down. Like many Chinese policies, their policy in this area is pretty vague. Some say it is 100% illegal, while others say there is no law that specifically bans the practice. Still, the government has made some efforts in the past to crack down on the use of recycled oil and enforce more sanitary methods of using and disposing of cooking oil. The unfortunate thing, though, is that this kind of enforcement is usually pretty ineffective--even nonexistent--outside of major cities. The likelihood of food safety laws being strongly enforced in smaller cities or rural areas is remarkably slim. As Dani's students told her, "There's nothing we can do about it."

It's probably not necessary to say that my appetite for restaurant food has been effectively ruined. There are a few restaurants in town that we feel are "safe," but in general I think I'll be sticking to my own kitchen. But I do plan to boost my efforts to learn to cook some of my favorite foods, and if I don't quite get the taste that I always get in restaurants--well, that's okay with me.

May Day Holiday

Okay, so first off I need to apologize for how long it's been since my last post.  To be fair, my life since vacation has been pretty dull so there wasn't actually that much to report.  Still, for those of you who only get photos and stories from here, I'm sorry!  I will try to be more consistent from now on.

Anyway, in this post I will be bringing you photos from the May Day holiday at Qufu Normal University, as well as from my trip to Qingdao, a seaside city a little north of here.

The Qufu Campus Sports Meet

The May Day holiday on campus is marked by the campus sports meet.  Basically, it's a track meet Olympics held between all the different departments on campus.  Each department selects students (mostly freshmen and sophomores) to compete in various track and field events, and a group of students from each department also puts on a performance to open the meet.

The start of the opening ceremony parade

The students marching by department

The foreign students didn't quite get the marching down, but still had a good time

I think being a part of the crowd was the best part of the event.  The stands were also divided by department, and all the attending students wore matching jackets in support of their team.  We were pretty bummed that we didn't have our own jackets to wear, but we did come prepared with signs to cheer on the foreign language students.  The opening performances were a lot of fun.  Most of the departments did some sort of synchronized dance on the field, complete with matching outfits, pom-poms, and in one case someone wielding a sword.  Our own department performed to Lady Gaga's "Telephone" and I noticed many of their fellow students dancing and singing along with great enthusiasm.  When encouraged to join in, however, most of us foreign teachers opted for simply waving our signs around.

Some of our CFL students

This performance told the story of a warrior, but I didn't manage to grasp any details

After the performances were over, the stands suddenly emptied and only a few small groups of students remained to watch the actual track events.  At first, I was surprised by this, but after another 40 minutes or so began to understand why they hadn't stuck around.  Unless you're an avid fan of track and field, you can only watch people jump over hurdles so many times.  Still, we happily cheered on the athletes from our own department for a little while before wandering back home.

A Trip to Qingdao

Taking advantage of our long weekend, I and a few fellow teachers decided to head to Qingdao for a few days.  Qingdao is a coastal city that is known mostly for its beer.  I decided to actually do some research for this trip, and discovered that the Germans took over Qingdao in 1898 when they noticed that the Chinese were building up a naval defense base, and they occupied the city until 1914.  While there, however, the Germans had a great influence on the city, most notably starting the Qingdao brewery.  Today, the brewery is still running and is one of, if not the, largest producers of beer in China.  We stopped by the brewery to get a tour on the history and development of the brewery, which came with free beer and some seriously delicious spiced peanuts.  The museum also included a "drunk house," a small wooden house that was tilted up onto one corner and that you had to attempt to navigate through without falling over.

In addition to its brewery, Qingdao is also famous for its aquarium.  I have to say, I didn't have the heart to take photos of most of the sections of the aquarium.  I was extremely sad to see that China does not take into consideration the comfort and health of the animals it chooses to put on public displays.  Most of the animals we saw in the aquarium were in tiny enclosures where they only had room to move up and down, rather than around in any way.  The polar bears were in a minuscule glass-fronted enclosure with barely a puddle to swim in, and both were cowering against the back wall in an attempt to escape the throngs of tourists and flashing cameras.  The arctic wolves were in a glorified cage without anything similar to natural territory, and they had thrown several breeds of penguins into one enclosure that was only 2-3 times the size of an average bedroom.  They were all huddled in tiny groups trying to avoid the unfamiliar groups around them.  It broke my heart to see them.  I hate to depress my readers, but if any of you ever have the opportunity to speak up on animal rights either in American zoos or those abroad, I hope you'll remember this post and take the chance make a difference.

On a brighter note, the sea lions seemed to get a pretty good deal.  They had a rather large tank in which they could swim to their hearts' content, under which was a tunnel for tourists to walk through.  It was fun to see them all zooming around, and many of them came right up to the glass to check out the humans below them.  I tried to take good photos, but the lighting was not in my favor.

Our trip to Qingdao also included a view transportation adventures.  We asked a senior student, Avery, to help us buy train tickets.  Avery, who was also going to accompany us, opted to buy the cheapest tickets she could find, and we all agreed to this plan without pausing to consider what exactly this might mean.  Later, we found out, and I have to say that while I am proud to have survived, I would not wish to repeat the experience.

The train we ended up taking was a seven hour overnight train and did not involve assigned seats, or even the concept "sold out."  Instead, it was a massive free-for-all in which everyone traveling on the line bought up tickets and then fought for breathing room on the train.  We were the fourth stop on the train's route north, and when we boarded it was already packed to the brim.  Every seat was full and people were crammed like sardines in the aisle and crouching in the connecting gaps between cars.  We managed to get ourselves a little space in the aisle, leaning awkwardly against seat backs and unsuspecting passengers' shoulders and heads.  Personally, I have never been good at standing for longer than about 20 minutes, so I was not looking forward to attempting it for several hours through the night.  Luckily for me, there were a few people willing to take pity on me, as well as my friends.  One man stood up and let me doze in his seat for a couple hours, and when I traded with him again Avery had managed to persuade a group on a long bench to slide over and make a little space.  We took turns perching, half on the seat and half off, while whoever was seatless stood or sat on the floor.  By the end of the trip we were in a sort of dog pile, me and Eliza on a bench, and Emily and Avery on the floor with their heads resting on our knees.  Irene had managed to score a seat one row behind us and had a little more breathing room, but by the end of the ride all of us were very worn out and cranky.

What struck me most about this experience, I think, was how easily everyone else on the train seemed to handle standing for so many hours without a break.  It was not just that they seemed to take it in stride, but that by the end of the journey everyone looked as if the ride had only lasted an hour or so.  By the end of the journey, I and my fellow foreign teachers looked like we had spent 7 hours on a cramped and overheated train, but everyone around us looked like they'd just finished showering and getting dressed.  We were sweaty and rumpled, and they were crisp and fresh.  I have noticed this a few times before, and still can't figure out the trick, but if I ever do it may be the best thing I bring home from China.

Festival dancers by the beach

Monument to the May 4th Movement

My journey home from Qingdao was much more comfortable, but still held some adventures of its own.  There were no direct trains from Qingdao to Qufu, so I had to change trains in Jinan, which is only about 40 minutes by fast train to Qufu.  However, I did not realize upon buying my ticket that there were two train stations in Jinan.  My train arrived at Jinan West, but my departing train left from Jinan East on the other side of the city.

Luckily for me, I had about three hours before my connecting train, so I had plenty of time to catch a cab.  However, before I could turn to leave the station and find one, I was encircled by a group of young Chinese boys wearing matching blue jackets and bright red sashes.  It took me a minute to recognize them as members of Youth Volunteer.  I'm not quite sure who they are or who runs the program, but there are always packs of youth volunteers at every train station ready to help travelers with luggage, directions, or anything else they may need assistance with.  The pack eventually thinned to two boys, who took my ticket and began explaining to me in Chinese that I was at the wrong station (at least that's what I'm assuming they were explaining).  I, in turn, tried to explain that I was aware of this and was fine on my own, but before my broken Chinese and miming could get very far, each boy had grabbed me by one of my elbows and I was swiftly propelled outside of the station and to the front of a line of taxis.  I nodded and said "thank you," trying to convey that I was fine and knew what to do, but it seemed that I had been classified as the helpless foreigner, and these two were determined to make sure that I made it to my train without any difficulty.

After the two boys held a heated conversation with the man running the cab line, in which they tried to get me to the front but were told rather rudely to shove off, a brief discussion was held.  Then, one of the boys returned to the station while the other grabbed my elbow again and steered me to the bus station.  At first I thought he would simply show me which bus to get on, but instead he came on with me and insisted on paying my fare.  Eventually we made it to the train station across town, where he accompanied me inside and took me to the platform, waving goodbye through the window of the train as it pulled away.  Apparently, chivalry is not dead--if you're looking for it, try a teenage boy in China.

What was really fun, though also quite challenging, about this experience was our attempt to communicate.  I knew extremely basic Chinese, and he knew extremely basic English, so most of our conversation was limited to fairly boring questions.  I was able to ask his name, which turned out to be Zhang Zeng Wen, and ask where he went to school and what he was studying (though he had to try to translate his major into English).  According to Zeng Wen I did pretty well in Chinese, but he opted to try out his English via his cell phone, and would type a series of questions in Chinese characters into it and then hit "translate."  This not only meant that it took us about five minutes to get through one question and answer apiece, but it also meant that I got some fairly flummoxing questions held up for me to read.  "You to Jinan do?" was clearly "What are you doing in Jinan?" but "You own to person of China?" I had no clue how to interpret.  When I gave him a look of complete bewilderment, he just smiled and typed a new question.

This was one of those moments that made me really love China.  I think you would be hard put to find someone in the states (especially a teenage boy) willing to take a complete stranger all the way across a city and put them onto a train, or to sit with them for two hours trying to hold a conversation with only a few words, a cell phone translator, and body language.  The next time I head through a train station I will give a very friendly greeting to the youth volunteers, and possibly hand out bags of cookies.